ticehurst moths: May 2009

Sunday, 24 May 2009

Flimwell 22nd May 2009

The Sphingids are here! From Steve's MV Robinson trap at Flimwell

Poplar Hawkmoth - Laothoe populi (above); Eyed Hawkmoth - Smerinthus ocellata (top - showing eyespots and mammal like 'face', & below - eyespots concealed)

Apart from the hawkmoths, last night's trap brought a dozen or so other species including Brown Silver-line, White Ermine, Pale Tussock, Cinnabar, Waved Umber, Scalloped Hazel, Pale Prominent, Spruce Carpet, Ingrailed Clay and Tawny-barred Angle.

A lunchtime stroll along Steve's butterfly transect in sunny but rather windy conditions yielded few butterflies but we did see some day-flying moths including: Nemophora degeerella, Cinnabar, Speckled Yellow, and this Burnet Companion found by Sally amongst bird's-foot-trefoil in the small bit of rough grassy vegetation towards the top of the ridge and identified by Ruth C.

Flimwell 21st May 2009

Micropterix cf. calthella - a micro-landscape. For scale, the large out-of-focus yellow object is a flower of yellow pimpernel (Lysimachia nemorum). Micropterix are unusual among British moths in having well developed mandibles which allow them to eat pollen (rather than 'drinking' nectar). This one is following the routeway of a bract of a yellow sedge plant towards its male spike. The anthers of this species have very recently emerged and dehisced at Flimwell and, where this individual is headed, there are already about twenty moths feeding on the abundantly produced pollen of one single spike. I saw this moth or a very similar species a month ago feeding on the pollen of earlier flowering sedges like wood sedge. I find myself wondering how long-lived the adults are, how far they can fly and whether they follow the phenological succession of different sedge flowers throughout spring. The books say they also feed on buttercups. The larvae feed on leaf litter.

Stonegate 20th May 2009

This landed on my clipboard when I was out surveying the other day near Stonegate. Bits of leaf tissue, bud scales, disintegrating catkins and frass form a kind of dry rain that constantly falls from the canopy onto the woodland surveyor who must sweep his or her notes often to remove detritus. This rain also includes many living organisms, especially at this time of year - lepidopteran larvae parachute down on spun silk. At first I took this for a bit of desiccated leaf tissue. But when it resisted efforts to be shaken or swept off, I realised this was only half right. Reminiscent of a 6mm long cigar, it is the mobile home of a tiny moth caterpillar (a case moth, Coleophora sp. probably serratella), constructed from a piece of rolled tree leaf (the food plant) and bound together (I suppose with silk). It makes two of these in its lifetime and each is architecturally distinct. This one is its second and will form the pupal case when the caterpillar has stopped feeding. The larva will soon attach itself and the case to a sunlit leaf and the adult moth will metamorphose inside. It may even have been attempting to pupate on my clipboard.

Nemophora degeerella (left)
A beautiful longhorn moth, I’m surprised it has no English name. For scale, it is standing on the serration at the margin of a nettle leaf. This is a male, with antennae four or five times the length of its forewing. Groups of them fly up and down in vertical columns sometimes in small gaps in the canopy (books say they fly at dusk but I often see them doing this in the middle of the day). When they do this above a sunspot on the woodland flooor, the long antennae catch and reflect the light and are very striking. It is said that this behaviour attracts females.

Silver Ground Carpet - Xanthorhoe montanata (right) – ubiquitous according to Townsend and Waring. Day-flying and apparently very common in the woods of the High
Weald.

Anthophila fabriciana – Nettle-tap (left), on its food plant, stinging nettle, in a secondary wood full of that plant. Thanks to David Burrows for identifying this.